The Permanence of the Young Men

My father, also Donald Maciver, died thirty years ago this month on the 7 th of October 1984. I was with him when he died, well almost as he died in between me sitting at his bedside and going through to the kitchen. By the time I got back he had died. I remember being annoyed with him for not waiting for me, having spent many hours at his side.

He has been on my mind many times of late. He died at the age of 66 of lung cancer. He suffered much but in the end knew little about it as the cancer had affected his brain. I think I was probably unfair to him when he was alive and well, and judged him unfairly. I should have tried more to understand what happened in his life. I wish now that I had been more patient with him, asked more questions, listened more, though I suspect he probably would not have been keen to talk. But I should have tried.

He lost his younger brother, Alex John, aged 20, on active service in the Second World War. I hope to write his story on here soon, or at least as much as I know of it.

The following poem is in remembrance of them both. It's by the Scottish Poet, William Soutar, who himself served in the Navy on convoy duties in the First World War. It's called :

The Permanence of the Young Men

No man outlives the grief of war
Though he outlive its wreck:
Upon the memory a scar
Through all his years will ache.

Hopes will revive when horrors cease;
And dreaming dread be stilled;
But there shall dwell within his peace
A sadness unannulled.,

Upon his world shall hang a sign
Which summer cannot hide:
The permanence of the young men 
Who are not by his side.

Coincidence of Roman Kings

I recently started an adult education class studying Latin. I had no plans to do so until I saw the class advertised when I was signing up for my Spanish class and it mainly took my fancy as it was a combination of history, language and culture which seemed just about right for me. I'm very pleased to have done so as it turns out to be one of the best classes I've ever attended. This is down to a combination of the quality of teaching which is excellent and also the combination of history, culture and language. I don't think I could have coped with two hours of Latin grammar and vocabulary and I have no need to become a Latin scholar, probably lacking the time too.

Our teacher is a young guy called Filippo from Pisa. An excellent teacher who puts a huge amount of effort into preparing and presenting his classes and emails his handouts and interesting links for further study. I missed the second class as I was unwell so I sent him an email to explain about my health problem and that I may not be able to attend all the classes, just depending on health progress and my recovery. Well you can imagine my surprise and delight to receive his reply offering to meet me for coffee on the following Monday to give me my own private class so that I would not fall behind.

I must admit I was slightly embarrassed to accept such generosity but felt it was too good an opportunity to miss. So there I was sitting in Costa Coffee at Holy Corner talking about the first seven Roman kings, the Rape of the Sabines and the rape of Lucretia, having already begun the study of the foundation myths of Rome in our previous class.

Some of you will recall previous mention in my blog of the Dylan song Early Roman Kings and my pal George sending a list of their names. I still haven't worked out why Dylan should have ended up writing a song called Early Roman Kings but I do know it's a fine song on the Tempest album and well worth a listen.

Filippo proceeded to write down the names of the first seven Roman kings, the early Roman kings of Dylan's song. He wondered if he could remember them all and he sure did.

Now that must be some kind of coincidence, surely. Or is it serendipity or are do they mean the same. I do wonder if George looked them up online or remember them from memory. Memory I hope. So tell us George! We should be told.

Billy Connolly

The Billy Connolly concert was superb. Laughed so much I was in pain. I think he gave me a hernia, the bad man. I was falling off my seat with the laughing. He must be the funniest, most hilarious, daftest, thoroughly Scottish performer in the universe. And needless to say the most outrageous, dangerously naughty, taking it to the limit many times till you're thinking God please stop Billy it's too much, but he just gets funnier and you hurt some more with the laughter and joy of it all.

He walked on stage to a standing ovation which seemed like it wasn't going to stop. He waved his hand at us to get us to stop "you're only doing that 'cos I'm no well." He started off talking about his Parkinson's and all the funny things it does to him, how his left arm tends to involuntarily drift upwards so it looks as if he is holding a raincoat, which sure enough it does throughout his performance. He was advised by Ian Holm to put his hand in his pocket if it began to shake which lead on to some funny stuff about visiting an art gallery and some unfortunate experiences viewing some nudes.

He mentioned his cancer at the start and promised to come back to it before the end, but either he forgot or he just ran out of time. Probably the latter as he was on stage for two hours and fifteen minutes of non stop performance. How he managed it is beyond me. I've seen many Festival Fringe comedians over the years and none of them give much more than an hour by which time they are usually exhausted and run out of material. Not Billy who seemingly could have gone on for ever, till he says " oh fuck that me finished" and walks slowly off stage.

He finds absurdity everywhere he looks and has the wonderful talent to turn the absurd into the most ridiculous long winded stories imaginable, sometimes appearing to lose his thread but always finding his way back, even though he has to ask once or twice "why the fuck am I telling you this?"

 What a comedian. Quite simply the best. I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to see him live for once in my life. I waited a long time for it but it was so worthwhile. Thank you Kieran for taking me. And I forgot about my own cancer for over two hours. A record perhaps?

A Night In the Usher Hall

Tonight I am having my first night time outing since my treatment for cancer began nearly eighteen months ago. So it's a big night for me. Let's hope I cope with it as I'm still not fully over my last operation to reverse my stoma. Wish me luck.

There aren't many people who would drag me out of my house of an evening right now. Perhaps Bob himself coming to Edinburgh. But an offer to go to see Billy Connolly in the Usher Hall tonight was one that I could definitely not miss. Especially given his own health situation and possibility this might be my last chance to see him. 

Kieran has bought me the tickets and I'm going with him and his girl friend. We often spoke about Billy when I used to take him out all these years ago when he was a wee boy. Kieran I mean and not Billy. So I was pleasantly surprised when he phoned recently to tell me he had bought  tickets for us. I've rarely been so excited about a concert as I am going to see Billy. So had to post this short blog to tell you all about it.

I'm now waiting for K and Kerry to arrive and I'm treating then to dinner before the concert, so better go and get ready now, not that there's much getting ready involved, just put on my shoes and have a pee. 

More tomorrow on concert. 

So it goes: Pride: Marvellous

Well that's it, the people have spoken and no independence no more, or at least for a while. Maybe the Catalans will do it before us. I'm not too surprised we lost so I wasn't too depressed at the result but I feel for all those activists who put so much into their campaign. It will take them some time to get over it but hopefully they won't give up on the activism. It's good for the soul. And God knows there's plenty to be active about. You may have noticed we're off to war again to kill a few more innocents. Will these people ever learn? I guess not. And what a pitiful sight Miliband makes.

My recovery continues at a slow but steady pace. I wish things would move faster but I'm glad to be feeling stronger by the day. My next appointment at the hospital will be on 12 November when I should be told the result of the scan they plan to give me to see if my body is clear of cancer. I can't say that I'm looking forward to it but at the same time I want it over and done with. I'm quietly confident that I will be able to live a more or less normal life after that. Let's hope all the treatment they've put me through over the past eighteen months has destroyed all the cancer cells in my lymph nodes and blood vessels and wherever else the little bastards were lurking.

I went to see a movie yesterday for the first time for a very long time and it felt good to be back in a cinema again. I saw a film called Pride with my good friend Emer. It was her birthday a few days ago so happy birthday, again, Emer. The film was excellent, funny, moving and in the end triumphant despite the final outcome of the miners' strike which is the historical setting for it. Some of you may know the background but if not it's based on a true story about how a group of young gays set up Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners and then proceeded to raise money for them and eventually made there way to South Wales to hand over their collections. Then it's all about what happened once they got there. It's a bit like Full Monty or Billy Elliott and just as good as both these films. I must admit I had a tear in my eye once or twice, especially when the miners' wives got up and sang Bread and Roses. Terrific. The soundtrack is worth a listen for those of you who were around at the time or even if you weren't. It brought back many memories of doing collections for the miners in and outside Argyle House, where I worked in those long off days, and then going out to various miners' clubs to deliver the proceeds.

I still remember some of the miners we met, but I can't seem to remember who came with me on those trips. If you were one of them let me know please. That year was also the year my father died and I spent some time back on The Isle of Lewis looking after him as he died. So it was quite an emotional movie for me one way or the other.

I hope you all managed to watch Marvellous which was on BBC 2 last week. It's what TV was made for. I've rarely seen a better made for TV movie. It's based on the true story of Neil Baldwin, played beautifully by Toby Jones, and set in and around Stoke on Trent, where I spent some very happy, memorable years in the sixties. If you haven't seen it I can highly recommend it and it should still be on iPlayer. If you're not in the country that's a shame, so go and see Pride instead. in fact see both if you can...

"So it goes" as Kurt Vonnegut said more than once in his novel Slaughterhouse Five. I think he used the phrase after every death of which there were many. He saw some terrible things in Dresden in 1945.

He also warned against the use of semicolons, calling them "transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing". So better be careful with my semicolons I think.